A Brief Thread on Marvel Films
Posted on October 20, 2019 Posted by John Scalzi 44 Comments
A Twitter thread I wrote on what Marvel films are, in the wake of both Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola dumping on them (and Coppola in particular calling them “despicable“). Archived here for posterity and conversation.
1. Since we’re on the subject, here’s my opinion of the Marvel films in general: They’re highly competent entertainments, whose individual installments range from underbaked (Iron Man 2) to superior pastiche (Winter Soldier). Brilliant? Generally, no. Despicable? Nah, bro.
2. Marvel films are to Disney over the last decade as musicals were to MGM in its heyday, or monster films were Universal, or gangster films were to Warner — a reliable economic engine, pitched to the masses. Easy to gripe on esthetically, but difficult to assail economically.
3. Will any Marvel films be “classics” 30 years down the line? Possibly, and in the same ratio as the MGM musicals or the Warner gangster films: a few remembered, the rest down the memory hole. But most films of any sort aren’t made to be classics, they’re made to make money now.
4. Scorsese or Coppola (or anyone) griping at Marvel films as not “true cinema” or despicable or whatever is essentially also condemning the vast majority of major studio output — competent entertainments — to the same fate. Which seems, I don’t know, a tad *dramatic.*
5. (Not to mention that Scorsese and Coppola — and indeed nearly any major director with more than a handful of films to their name — has forgettable “competent entertainments” on their resume as well. They did films for money/to keep busy/to catch a wave, too.)
6. I won’t suggest Marvel films are great cinema in general, but what I can say is that I appreciate Disney’s consistent high competence with these films — if you think it’s easy, note WB’s DC inconsistencies, or Universal’s aborted “Dark Universe.” It ain’t easy, folks.
7. Which is why Marvel films *have* their exalted place in common culture at the moment — as “Competent Entertainments” they fill their brief with a consistency very few other franchises ever have. That’s not down to an “auteur,” that’s down to an institutional dictate.
8. Which in point of fact may be what Coppola and Scorsese — who came to fame in the 70s as cinematic auteurs — are actually griping about: Marvel films are the antithesis of the sort of films they create and that they admire, ones of a specific directorial vision.
9. Which is fine! But doesn’t rise to the level of cinematic despicableness, any more than the studio-era musicals or gangster films, so much more about a studio identity than any specific director (even if some directors became identified with the genres), were despicable.
10. In sum: Marvel films perfectly competent largely entertaining studio product, not usually springing from a singular directorial vision but that’s not a horrifying thing, the auteurs complaining come out of a different cinematic philosophy, which is fine. Deep breaths. /end
Got it in one.
I also have to say I admire the braiding of information/context/reference throughout the films, which you really get if you’ve seen them all (“Wait, that hanging behind Tony Stark in the first Iron Man shows up with the Mandarin in Iron Man 3 and what’s that about?”). There’s no auteur-ship, but these films were, by and large, made by people who cared about the product. That in itself is admirable in my opinion.
I’ve seen maybe half a dozen super hero films in my life (the original Superman, Ironman I, one of the early Batman, one of the early Spiderman, I’m sure one for two more that I’ve forgotten). Usually I get sucked in by rave reviews that say even people who don’t like super hero films will like this and then I don’t. My general take is that they just don’t entertain me. I find the pseudo-science origin stories to be ridiculous. I find the long CGI action sequences to be boring and too loud (also a problem with the LOTR series). All the characters, even the central ones, are shallow. I would rather read a book or listen to music than spend 2-3 hours watching another one. Which is a long way to say that competent entertainment is not what I would call them.
Even the denial that there is (sometimes) auteurship in these things is a bit overstated. In most of the earlier films that’s true but Thor:Ragnarok is suffused with Taika Waititi and Guardians of the Galaxy was clearly very much dependent on James Gunn. Even Avengers Assemble is recognisably ‘a Josh Whedon movie’.
I once watched an interview with Sam Neil, where the interviewer tried to get him to trash Jurassic Park in comparison The Dish, an indie flick that came out the same year as JP. He stopped the interviewer right there, and said that getting into distinctions of low brow and high brow entertainment was wrong, because it was all entertainment. He pointed out that what he does it what people go to when they aren’t working, when they want to relax and enjoy themselves, and it wasn’t up to anyone to judge their choices. As I was a cook in fine dining, I got the point instantly, that the multi hundred $ meals I cooked were not fundamentally superior to the nice dinner out at the local , and to get over that kind of thinking. We’re the entertainment.
Buzz, it’s great that you’ve learned that about yourself, presumably with the outcome that you aren’t going to watch such movies again. I would not take that away from you for the world. You just need to grok that distinction between “X doesn’t work for me” and “X is therefore badly made.” I will probably never enjoy an opera in my life, but that doesn’t make them badly done; it makes them not my cup of tea.
Perfect cromulence, tuned to
the color of a dead television channela global audience.What Louann said. I personally enjoy a wide range of entertainment, but my husband only enjoys movies where things go boom a lot. At least the Marvel movies do have a measure of wit and thought to them which means he and I can both enjoy them. Though I tend to zone out during extended fight sequences, and I am very tired of watching monsters/aliens/whatever knocking down buildings, even I got all the feels when Captain America found himself able to wield Thor’s hammer. And the sequence in Captain Marvel that showed the child Carol Danvers emerging, over and over again, smiling while covered in bruises and scrapes, moved me to tears.
I like both prime steak and Snickers bars. Those who *only* want prime steak or *only* want Snickers bars all the time are missing out on half the fun.
I’ll echo what I know has been said on twitter: Black Panther, while still being as fun and shiny as all the rest, is also a genuinely groundbreaking film.
Being of a certain age, I’ve been a Marvel fan since the first issues of the Fantastic Four appeared on newsstands. And I was always frustrated by pre-MCU movies that seldom got the characters and their backstories right. I liked the FF as much for the character conflicts within the team as for their colorful adventures. And I identified with Spidey’s teenage troubles even as a pre-teen.
That meant that when the MCU did come along, I was overjoyed to see Iron Man, Cap, all the others they still had the rights to at the time, done properly. Even when they made changes, they were acceptable and made sense. No Donald Blake alter-ego for Thor? No problem!
All of which means that I have an affection for these characters that stretches across nearly sixty years, so of course these (mostly) excellent film adaptations are going to affect me more strongly than they might other people. I about lost it, for instance, at the end of the first Captain America when Nick Fury called Steve Rogers “Cap” for the first time.
Our life experiences color our reactions to any artform, “high” or “low.”
Yours would most definitely be a minority opinion, around the world and not just in the United States.
John, I hope you’ll forgive a query that’s not directly on-point: Would you consider writing up an assessment of the two most-very-oddball DC ‘Arrowverse’ television series? I refer, here, to Doom Patrol and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.
It seems to me someone at Berlanti Production, around season 3 of Legends of Tomorrow, gave the writers permission to go crazy with metahumour, fourth-wall demolition, and taking the stuffing out of all the other Arrowverse shows, raising the show well above average. (Before that, IMO it was just average with slight kooky overtones.) I also just finished season 1 of the more-recent Doom Patrol, and it’s more pleasingly eccentric, partly because the writers had the good sense to let Alan Tudyk chew scenery as the villain.
I think John has summed things up pretty well. Scorsese and Coppola might also be reminded that it’s the big money entertainment features that allow more artistic films to be made. And FFC really shouldn’t be throwing stones considering he cut his teeth making nudie comedies and an unmarketable horror film shot with some extra budget Roger Corman had lying around.
Mcdonalds is profitable and loved by the masses.
But if a 3 michelin star chef hates on the mcrib, he kinda has a point.
I like the Marvel movies and will gladly tell anyone who feels otherwise to not go see them because I enjoy extra legroom with my popcorn and eye candy.
“Despicable” seems to imply not only a level of difference of actual value in the movies (rather than opinion) but active evil or harm caused by the Marvel movies or their production. Given that lots of studios have actively controlled their movie products and thus taken agency from directors in a similar manner (if not more dictatorially), I don’t see that there is an alteration of director-studio equilibrium by Marvel movies.and thus any harm done or evil intended. If making movies that aren’t (mostly) high art is evil (“bad movies drive out good”?), then pot, meet kettle.
FFC has plenty of room to critique the movies of others, but his implication of harm seems incorrect and overdramatic and lacking in awareness of his own work…which seems like a pretty comprehensive self-own, or at least a self-rent.
I generally don’t worry too much about film criticism from the director of Captain EO.
“Despicable” certainly seems hyperbolic. I have to echo Louann – if he doesn’t like them, he’s welcome to not watch them. Problem solved.
I love, like, or enjoy most of the MCU. Heck, I own most of them, even Thor 2, on DVD*. Would any of them make my top ten list of all time favorite movies? Maybe Black Panther. But I find them to be great comfort food movies and 9/10 that’s what I want when rewatch a film.
The Godfather is great film, but not a great way to try to forget the week sucked. (And, Coppola? *cough*Godfather3*cough*)
*The Incredible Hulk is probably the MCU’s biggest disappointment, imo. And since they seem to have pretty much ignored it, I don’t see any reason to spend money on it.
There is the occasional director who has never done a project purely for money. Woody Allen is at least close to that ideal. I’m torn on saying anything good about Allen because of his despicable behavior toward his romantic partners, family, and cast members, but he deserves credit for sticking to his guns and making the movies he wants to make. (He’s also fortunate to have enough of a fan base to be able to raise the modest amounts of money he needs, even though there isn’t much potential for return on investment; Allen is unlikely to ever make another hit film that would provide a payday.) Some of them don’t make it up to competent entertainment but I believe he has always aspired to more.
Back to the real subject… if you don’t enjoy MCU movies, don’t watch them. (I’m past my days of watching all of them and only go to the ones that particularly appeal.) Don’t hate on people for liking something that isn’t your glass of tea.
It’s not as if those MCU movies are stealing the audience for other films. Most of the people going to see them would probably stay home if they (or something similar to fill the ecological niche) no longer existed.
Congratulations to marvel Kevin feige et Al. If they’re not talking about you, then you’re doing something wrong. And to the 2 old geezers, it only took eleven years but they finally noticed the MCU. Maybe they’ll notice the dceu before they kick the bucket.
One of the critiques along these lines I saw was that because the movies are so successful, they’re getting auteur directors to make those movies instead of the next cinematic masterpiece – Ragnorok instead of some piece of high art, if you will. I imagine there’s a similar argument to be made for sharecropping in the Star Trek/Wars universes for aspiring writers as well.
My reaction to that is mostly along the lines of “Hasn’t it always been that way?” and noting that at least for writers, self-publishing is a more viable option than ever before (between e-pub, print-on-demand and IndieGoGo/Kickstarter/Patreon, I’ve heard a number of authors/artists note that they could never have produced this art without those services becoming affordable).
I wonder how long it will be before it is (financially, practically) viable to make your own movie digitally and distribute it on the Internet?
Personally, I feel the same way about “comic book” movies that I do about Star Wars or Star Trek: They’re not my cup of tea. Ergo, I have no problem in not watching them. I mean, the old steady adage of, “No one is forcing you to watch it, if you don’t like, simply change the channel.” applies here.
I agree that most genres are there to make money for the studio, because, isn’t that what the ultimate end game is all about? If they happened to be thought provoking, etc. more power to them. But, money talks and suckers walk. And trashing something that you don’t like, simply because you think what you do takes more work to complete than what you’re trashing, just makes you look small, petty and ultimately, sad.
As a Sr citizen with probable main stream tastes in entertainment for my age group … I do not appreciate any of these films. I know many people, especially younger ones do. I recognize that in many modern films of all types that the special effects / cgi is amazing and continuing to advance. I’m waiting for someone to do a modern take on a Howdy Doody remeake!
A quick look at Coppola’s ouvre will show you that he’s made plenty of cheesy, make-money-now movies. He directed a movie shown exclusively at Disney theme parks (Captain EO) for heaven’s sake. As for the Marvel movies, I think several of them were a good deal worse than Iron Man 2, but most of the bad to forgettable ones, Antman aside, came before Marvel hit its stride with the MCU. I particularly liked the first Avengers movie–something about the chemistry between the cast members always sucks me in if I’m channel flipping and it’s on somewhere (and it seems like it’s *always* on somewhere). “Lawrence of Arabia” they are not, but you know something? Lawrence of Arabia was exhausting.
I will take this opportunity to gripe about one pet peeve I have with the MCU movies–the obligatory monster boss battle at the end of each movie is almost always so overwhelming visually that it leaves me with a headache. The cartoon Into the Spiderverse (yes, I know it wasn’t Disney) finale was so over the top visually I thought they ought to warn people prone to seizures.
Are we talking a dark gritty Howdy Doody biopic? His rise? His fall? His brutal death by decapitation at the hands of an unknown assailant?
I’m all in.
I’ve enjoyed the marvel movies, but they are escapism, yes? I mean spongebob is my go-to when the world is going to shit, and its goijg to shit a lot lately. But even I get they are a gross simplification of the world designed specifically to show a nice, simple, black and white world where good and evil fight, and good pretty much always wins?
Infinity War was the biggest counter example to this where the good guys lost, but… have you seen the movie? Its maddeningly a plot on rails. The same plot on rails, over and over.
Oooh. We must do this not-so-good thing to save an infinite number of lives across the universe. I cant. But you must! I cant! But you must! I cant! But you must!
We get it. Its the runaway trolley problem, there are a couple people in the trolley, and there is an infinite number of lives at the bottom of the track. Its not that fing complicated.
Vision wanted to sacrifice himself. At some point, he should have offed himself, forcing scarlet witch to destroy the mind stone far earlier. I mean its not the first time characters sacrificed for the greater good. Cap flew that bomber into the ice, thinking he would die. Vision could have saved half the universe.
But it was a plot on rails. No one could make a logical decision because we all knew the mad titan had to get the stones for the movie to get where it needed to get.
Speaking of idiot. Can someone explain to the mad titan exponential growth? Cutting a population in half would set Earth back about 50 years or so. Thats it. At least the comic book had him murder because he was in love with Death and was trying to win her favor. The movie explanation was just stupid.
And Dr Strange looked at millions of future paths and only ONE ended well? Doc may have well announced, this is LITERALLY a plot on rails, no one can do anything that makes any sense to them.
And the biggest wtf of all: captain marvel? Doc had a time stone and a sling ring that can portal anywhere, go into the future, portal to where marvel is, tell her to get her ass back to earth so she shows up two days earlier. Thats all it would take for an easy win.
As soon as Marvel said “i will be out of radio range”, the movie might as well sent the one black character down to the basement to investigate that weird sound. She was the most sensible fighter to beat Thanos, but she was new and the writers wanted it to be about the characters who have been around for all the previous movies.
She’s also infinitely powerful. We get it. And now youve got all the narrative issues that come with a character that has infinite power. And maybe the “earth isnt the only place with problems” excuse explains her decades long absense, but jeebus, half the universe is at stake and no one even MENTIONS the most powerful character they know? Doc strange couldnt forsee, that in those millions of futures that she keeps punching literal holes through spaceships at the last minute before Tony snaps his fingers and maybe figure out a way to get her back a day earlier?
Hulk gets pinned by a boulder and that takes him out long enough that it comes down to Stark?
I mean, it makes sense from a appeal to the audience way, that the culmination of all these movies about superheroes with superpowers, that the universe is saved by one of the few non-superpowered people, stark. But jeebus. Infinity war and endgame were a mess to get to that point.
I grew up with Marvel comics. I remember the desperate plight of comic fans every time a work was adapted, poorly. Spider-man 1978? Wonder Woman? The Hulk? They had some essences correct, but so much of it either wrong or impossible due to budget or conceptual limitations. Movies were often as bad. Superman was campy, but relatively faithful. Batman 1989 was intentional campy, but still serious enough and well-made enough to hit the zeitgeist. But it wasn’t until 1999’s X-Men that things started to fell ‘right’ (and yes, technically Blade is a comic movie, but not really), although it still had the ‘superhero movie embarrassed about its origins’ theme to it (mocking the comic version of their costumes in-text, for example).
Iron Man was a game changer not just for finally getting a recognizably accurate comic story and character to the screen, but for getting the tone and ideas right. Not every MCU movie works as well as IM (Thor is OK, but more as a stepping stone to other things,while Thor 2 is…messy), but their shared space and sense of fun/adventure make them solid entertainment. They respect longtime fans of the material and deliver interesting characters with at least some degree of the complexities of the character from the comics (often cherry-picking the best material from the comics).
I go to movies to be entertained and told an emotionally-engaging story. Many Pixar movies bring tears to my eyes…and some Marvel movies do, as well. Both Guardians movies punch you in the gut at moments (the end of GotG2 is ugly-cry territory), for example. Is Ant-Man or Ant-Man 2 the equivalent of an art house movie? Of course not. But they aren’t trying to be. I get why Scorsese and Coppola might look down upon them, but I think that’s their loss.
“Despicable,” Mr Coppola? Consider your own endless self-indulgent return of material rightly removed from Apocalypse Now!‘s theatrical release by an editor who had more understanding of both what was in front of him and Conrad’s novella (about 38,000 words) than you appear to this day. You famously asked Marlon Brando to read it before filming, but one must wonder whether you did afterward. And the less said about the idiot plots and general idiocy underlying each of the Godfather films and how those relate to their source material, the better.
“Auteur” isn’t necessarily a good thing, any more than a recent-Julliard-graduate violinist necessarily creates better musical performances (let alone compositions) than does Mark Knopfler or Richard Thompson. Not even in terms of “technical accuracy”! Then, too, based on many statements over the years and especially upon his apparent distress regarding the current films, George Lucas considers himself an “auteur,” so be very careful indeed!
I don’t defend the MCU as high art that must be taught to all right-thinking, cultured Westerners (or Americans, or residents of the Upper Lower Middle West Side of an island bought for beads and whiskey). The same goes for Scott Joplin, Miles Davis, and Jimi Hendrix, who have something in common frequently missing from your films (and, in general, from auteurship)… or, going farther back to the “higher end,” Glück versus Beethoven.
3. Will any Marvel films be “classics” 30 years down the line?
I’m not ‘into’ the genre but I have to admit that ‘Black Panther’ was pretty good. “Classic” might be a stretch, but a lot of films we think of as classics now were not particularly meant to be anything more than ‘contemporary’ entertainment.
(And yes I do own the deluxe dvd of ‘Casablanca’ ;-) )
I think they forget Film is primarily ENTERTAINMENT. It can provoke, it can give you feelings in many directions, etc. But it is all entertainment.
Scorsese is just as guilty of throwing out stuff of a certain style to hit his target fans and milk them. Wolf of Wall Street is the best example of that. “Let’s get the flashy hot actors to chew scenery and then campaign for an Oscar” Dijour. He wanted us to learn something from that? What was to learn? That there’s more monsters on Wall Street than Monsters Inc?
He’s just pissed he doesn’t get the masses and it doesn’t translate well in china.
And while Copolla gave us two good Godfathers, he also gave us a bad one and Captain EO
So, Martin Scorsese said:
“I don’t see them. I tried, you know? But that’s not cinema. Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.”
He starts off saying he doesn’t see them, then says he “tried”. What does try mean in his context, I wonder? I mean, try could be he watched part of one movie, or a few movies, or half the Marvel movies. To me, it’s not really a fair comment to say that none of it is “cinema”, without having seen them.
Then Francis Ford Coppola said:
“When Martin Scorsese says that the Marvel pictures are not cinema, he’s right because we expect to learn something from cinema, we expect to gain something, some enlightenment, some knowledge, some inspiration.”
I can understand that he might not have gained anything, but his statement suggests that he doesn’t think ANYONE can. I think Captain America: The First Avenger was quite inspiring – doing the right thing, even when the personal cost is clear and hurts like hell. Just because it involves superheroes, doesn’t mean squat. Each person is the arbiter of their own learning, their own inspiration, their own enlightenment. FFC isn’t the arbiter of those things for anyone but himself, and that’s where he should’ve kept his comments.
This whole thing smacks of the argument I used to hear that Science Fiction is somehow not a “literary” genre, that it’s just pulp or mass entertainment (as if that’s somehow lesser). Gatekeepers gonna gatekeep, I guess.
I agree with the general and largely well expressed sentiment that just not watching something that is not entertaining is the right way to go rather than complaining that it exists.
However, I both understand and sympathize with the feeling of being left out. It is a little like being the only coffee drinker in a country where tea is the national drink. The hypothetical coffee lover will be turning down offers of tea, avoiding conversations about tea, or being reminded that their preference is not popular.
The Marvel Movies and other franchises take up a large amount of cultural space. People talk about the movies, they get advertised, their business is reported on, and so on. Even as a person who likes some of them it can be a bit off putting that so much attention is being paid to these movies.
And yet here I am writing this about the debate around Marvel movies.
It’s a fascinating phenomena which reminds me a lot of Soap Operas or Shonen Anime. Pluck any given marvel movie from the timeline. A few of them are quite good. Some are competent. Some are terrible.
Taken individually, the bulk of the franchise is forgettable. Good for an evening and a conversation or two, but hardly the height of cinema.
However, _taken as a whole_, they’re something remarkable. They’re a TV series in movie form. Each installment builds on previous work in a way that elevates the entire franchise. Watch Thor the Dark World. It’s a bad movie. Really bad. But seeing that film gives Thor’s redemption arc in Endgame some much-needed gravitas. The scenes with his mother lack resonance if you haven’t watched The Dark World.
In this way, the MCU is basically a Soap Opera or a Shonen. Any given installment is demonstrably bad. There’s better art out there. The best episode of One Piece or Naruto will never hold a candle to the worst episode of ER. However, fans aren’t watching _that_ episode. They’re watching on an entirely different time-scale.
Marvel is just another name for a blender. Throw in whatever you want. It all comes out the same.
Wait who said something bad about Antman??
I think some directors forget that first and foremost a movie should be entertaining. I recently saw Ad Astra, a movie almost universally acclaimed by critics. Well directed, wonderful actor and good special effects. And yet as much as I love a competently made SF film. was absolutely bored to death.
I am no fan of “Superhero” movies, but I recognize these films bring entertainment to millions of moviegoers. If a film can be both art and entertain audiences, so much the better! I can’t say all of Scorsese and Coppola movies do that.
I think I found Scorsese’s comments a bit less frustrating than Coppola’s comments. Scorsese at least was up front that this was a matter of preference and that it wasn’t a massively informed preference. The only problem is the comment about cinema, which really doesn’t hold up, but I can’t really fault anything else said, although I like the Marvel films.
I quite like my franchises being consistent in both tone and continuity, I think auteurs have no place in franchises and should not meddle in them. They mostly make poor franchise movies, thinking of you DCCU and Star Wars, but even when they do make a good movie (Ang Lee’s Hulk, for example, as a good movie but poor Hulk movie) they latch onto the wrong part of the franchise and the wrong elements to satisfy their artistic sensibilities and not fan expectations. Feige was the first person to really get that, and shake that out of the system.
Plus they all seem to love origin stories, which are great for writers because where it begins is where all the angsty stuff tends to happen but poor for fans because they already know that story. Just look at Fanfiction.net and how many fanfics die after the first chapter to see that.
cryptic: “Plus they all seem to love origin stories, which are great for writers because where it begins is where all the angsty stuff tends to happen but poor for fans because they already know that story.”
Out of the 6 spiderman movies so far, i think at least 8 of them were origin stories.
I think writers like them because they come with an “everyman” character in the protagonist. They start out suffering some undeserved mistreatment, i.e. washing dishes for an evil stepmother, and then they get some sort of superpower that allows them to fight back, i.e. a fairy godmother who gives them a powered armor ball gown and a pumpin based batmobile so they can fight back against their oppressor. Then they go a little too far, stay out past midnight, and uncle owen dies, but not without giving the “great responsibility” speech. Then finally, they accept their new power, and weild it in a responsible way, beat the ever loving snot out of the wicked stepmother. fall in love with vickey vale. Live happily ever after.
God damn. I want to write a cinderella superhero origin story now.
The sequel can easily lose the everymsn sppeal since cindy is living in a castle and has staff to wash the dishes. And the antagonist is more important to get just right because she has to be a littke more powerful than cinderella at first so there can be an act 2 where cindy tries to defeat but fails and act 3 where cindy gets more power and finally defeats the villian.
History is littered with superpower origin stories. Sequels? Not nearly as much.
I feel like Scorsese and Coppola are being petty or they are just reaching for free press. Maybe both.
I mean: Someone has even said, in their defense, that Scorsese had to go scrounge up *just* 100M from Netflix and it’s all the MCU’s fault. ROTFL.
And the dumb ones are the ones that enjoy Superhero movies? Okay.
I wish them success.
“We all fear death and question our place in the universe. The artist’s job is not to succumb to despair, but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.”
–Gerttude Stein or Woody Allen
I dont know if the antidote is Ironman. Maybe its part of it. But it feels like Ironman alone doesnt solve the problem.